


So no one told you life was gonna be this way

by sturionic



Series: The Idiotverse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, May & Pepper Coparenting, May & Pepper are friends, Peter is a Little Shit, Tony Stark Is Not Helping, we stan the two most powerful women in the MCU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-22 09:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturionic/pseuds/sturionic
Summary: Somehow it sneaks up on her - sneaks up on both of them.“Good lord, Potts,” May says. She reaches over to dig her spoon into Pepper’s mint chocolate chip ice-cream. “I think we’re friends.”Getting ice-cream together at a cute little parlor in the Bronx and trading theories about who killed Jason Blossom on Riverdale isn’t just a routine touch-base, Pepper realizes. It’s a friend thing. They’re doing a friend thing.“Wow,” is all she can say. “We are.”-May Parker, Pepper Potts, the adorable mutant teenage vigilante they're co-parenting, and the road to a beautiful friendship.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts
Series: The Idiotverse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624840
Comments: 47
Kudos: 365





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Pepper Potts meets May Parker, she thinks: _This woman is terrifying._

The thought surprises her, because Pepper doesn’t waste time being intimidated by people. She had decided the first day she stepped off the train into New York City that she wasn’t going to play out the tired “country-bumpkin in the big city” narrative; no sir, Virginia Potts deserved her spot here same as the rest of them did, and she would not so much as flinch at these loud, rude, fast-walking New Yorkers.

And yet she finds herself unable to suppress a full step backwards as this diminutive nurse, still in her scrubs, advances on Tony gesticulating wildly and hollering in her broad Queens accent.

“You _abducted a child_ and flew him to _Germany_ to get the shit beat out of him by _Captain Fucking America_ -”

“Well, it wasn’t abduction, you signed the papers-”

Pepper can’t help it. She flinches again. Of all the stupid shit Tony could’ve said in that moment.

May reaches up and slaps Tony full across the face. Neither Happy nor Pepper make a move to stop her.

Pepper Potts is surprised by another thought:

She really, _really_ likes May Parker.

* * *

The second time Pepper Potts meets May Parker is over an extremely awkward dinner that Tony has arranged for the three of them plus Happy, apparently under the impression that having more people around carries a higher guarantee of his survival. He seems to have forgotten that neither Pepper nor Happy have any inclination to save him from May.

“So, uh, how was work,” Tony fumbles as he cuts his steak.

“What is this, Stark, an interrogation?” May waves her soup spoon at Pepper and Happy. “If I’d known we were allowed to bring backup I would’ve.”

“No, Mrs. Parker,” Tony tries for his ‘smoothing-over-impending-disasters’ voice this time, the impossibly suave one, “this is just a friendly get-together, so we can all get to know-”

“No, I’ll tell you what,” May jabs her spoon back into her chowder, like she’s spearing a piece of meat, “this _is_ an interrogation. Me, interrogating _you three_ , because it seems my idiot nephew never learned his lesson about getting into scary expensive black cars driven by men with sunglasses-” now she’s violently ripping her bread roll in half, “-to go spend his Friday nights with two of the world’s richest celebrities, who apparently have nothing better to do.”

As much as Pepper is enjoying watching Tony flounder and is totally disinclined to step in, this makes her raise an eyebrow and turn to her fiancé. “Tony,” she says evenly, “You told me you had May’s permission to have Peter over on Fridays.”

“I thought I did,” Tony replies, looking oddly crestfallen.

“Let me get something straight.” May finishes murdering her bread roll and sets it delicately on the side of her plate. “I don’t like you, Stark. I don’t like you either, Hogan. And jury’s still out on you,” here she waves a hand at Pepper, “because I don’t know you very well, but I question your taste in men. The thing is, Peter’s had a rough go of it, do you understand? That kid has never had an easy life, so I will be _damned_ if I deliberately take any joy out of it. That includes swinging around in his stupid onesie, spending Fridays blowing shit up in your lab, and getting to eat all the fancy food his garbage disposal of a stomach can handle at least once a week. I don’t like it, any of it, but all I can do at this point is cross my fingers and hope that for _once,_ things are looking up for my boy. Even just a little bit.” 

May’s eyes are sparkling with tears at the corners. This doesn’t make her any less imposing as she rounds on Tony and jabs her finger directly at his face. 

“So you, Stark, are _in it_ now. You want to be in this child’s life? Then you are _all the way in,_ and you _stay there._ No more half-in half-out bullshit. You answer to me, because I am his parent and the only family he has left in this entire world. And if you abandon him I swear to everything above you will regret it.”

Pepper and Happy exchange a look. They both know that Tony is all-in with Peter at this point; whether he himself knows it is anyone’s guess. 

But he makes an admirable effort to restrain the panic on his face, and offers his hand to May for a solemn handshake, and from that point on things get just a little bit easier.

* * *

When Tony creates a group chat for the four of them, Pepper discreetly pilfers May’s number and privately invites her out for coffee. May suggests late-night bagels instead, and they meet at 11 p.m. at a little hole-in-the-wall near the Parkers’ apartment after May gets off her shift at the hospital.

“I hope you don’t mind,” May says around a mouthful of challah bagel. “Being invited out for coffee gives me the heebie-jeebies. It feels like a job interview or something.”

Pepper smiles over the rim of her cup of cocoa. “No, this is fine.”

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” May’s eyes are shrewd, but not unkind.

“Nothing,” Pepper says honestly. “Nothing in particular. I just wanted to...” she fumbles for words, and then gets even more lost because she fumbles for words so rarely that this instance throws her off, then finishes lamely with: “I just wanted to talk to you.”

May’s eyes soften behind her glasses, and she leans back with a little smile. “Okay. How was work?”

That wasn’t really what Pepper expected, not at all. She’d supposed they would talk about Peter, or Tony, or any of the ridiculous circumstances that had brought them here. For the second time in ten minutes May has thrown her off course and she’s not quite sure what to say. She realizes that this is the first time in a long time someone without stakes in Stark Industries has asked her that question - not expecting her to go into any detail about numbers, or performance issues, or stakeholder concerns. 

Pepper tilts her head and chews on her lip. “Huh. How _was_ work?”

“Jesus, Potts, it’s not a complicated question,” May snorts, and Pepper realizes that she’s teasing. “Here, I’ll go first. Had to fish a very small zucchini out of some poor moron’s ass, and that wasn’t even the grossest thing that happened to me today.”

Pepper splutters a startled laugh into her cocoa. “ _What?_ How does - what-”

“We see it all the time. Not always zucchinis, but often. You know, people get curious about butt stuff, and you can buy a zucchini just about anywhere without getting funny looks from the cashier. The problem is when people chicken out and buy little tiny zucchinis. There’s nothing to stop them from going up too far and getting lost in there.”

As May talks Pepper starts to giggle helplessly, until she has to put her cocoa down and laugh into her hands. “Oh _no,_ ” she moans through chortles.

“Oh _yes,_ ” May says wickedly, “and then the suckers have to waddle into the ER and tell their poor long-suffering nurse some tall tale about how they were making dinner and somehow tripped and landed _ass-first_ on a zucchini that for some reason has a _lubed-up condom_ on it-”

“Oh _god._ ” Pepper is laughing so hard now that tears are gathering in the corners of her eyes. “What’s the point in lying about it?”

May’s laughing too, slapping the table heartily. “If only they knew how many lonely vegetable lovers there are in New York City,” she cackles. “There’s no need to be shy about it!”

Once they collect themselves a little, May asks again: “So how was work?”

Pepper doesn’t even hesitate this time. “Oh, about the same as yours, full of assholes and liars.”

This time they laugh so hard that May spits crumbs all over the table, and the bagel shop owner shoots them a pained look before retreating into the back.

* * *

Somehow it sneaks up on her - sneaks up on both of them.

“Good lord, Potts,” May says. She reaches over to dig her spoon into Pepper’s mint chocolate chip ice-cream. “I think we’re friends.”

Pepper mulls that over. They’ve been sporadically touching base since that first late-night bagel excursion, grabbing tea here and there or even lunch when both their schedules allow. Pepper had told herself it was the responsible thing to do, that Tony tended to get carried away so it made sense for her to check in with May periodically and make sure she was up-to-date.

But getting ice-cream together at a cute little parlor in the Bronx and trading theories about who killed Jason Blossom on Riverdale isn’t a routine touch-base, Pepper realizes. It’s a friend thing. They’re doing a friend thing.

“Wow,” is all she can say. “We are.”

“You know what sucks about being an adult?” May says, taking another shameless bite of Pepper’s ice-cream. “Friendship is so circumstantial. I had this group of girlfriends in my twenties, you know, what the kids now would say were my ‘ride or die’ posse. Well, actually, I don’t think anyone says _posse_ anymore. Whatever. The thing is, we always thought we’d go through everything together, and then suddenly Ben and I had a kid and I started taking extra courses to finish nursing school early. I was the same person, same interests, my priorities had just shifted a little bit. You know? I still wanted to hang out, just not as often and not as late at night. But that was it.” Here May makes a slicing motion across her neck. “We were somehow on different paths, just like that.”

“Yeah,” Pepper says contemplatively. “No one from home would talk to me once I moved here. I guess they thought that the train ride from Minneapolis to New York made me into a stuck-up snob overnight and that we had nothing in common anymore. It was crazy. These people I’d grown up with, my whole life, and...” she mimics May’s slicing motion. “Yeah. Just like that.”

May nods sagely, dumping a spoonful of her butter ripple into Pepper’s ice-cream dish as a trade for the stolen mint chocolate chip. “Uh huh. And then eventually you go through your second set of adult friends.”  
  
“Right!” Pepper says. “For me it was the other secretaries and assistants at Stark Industries. Then when all of the...you know, the Iron Man stuff happened, it was like I was yanked into this insane superhero world and suddenly I had more to talk about with the Black freaking Widow than the girls I used to go out for martinis with on Saturday nights.”

May laughs. “Well, okay, my second set wasn’t that dramatic. Ben and I finally settled down and made some boring parent friends, and then our kids all grew up and went to different high schools and we lost touch.” 

“It sucks,” Pepper scoffs, taking a ferocious bite of the butter ripple. “It _sucks,_ ” she repeats.

“You tell ‘em,” May cheers. “You know what, though? I have a good feeling about you and me.”

Pepper is taken aback, unable to reign in the blush rising in her cheeks. She feels a little giddy. “You do?”

“Well, yeah. We’re basically co-parenting a teenager. If you and Tony ever split I’d make sure you got visitation with Peter.”

“I hope you’re not joking, because that actually makes me feel relieved,” Pepper says honestly. “Not that Tony and I aren’t solid, but...I really love that kid, you know?”

May smiles and squeezes Pepper’s hand. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

* * *

“May,” Pepper says into the phone late one night, “Your kid is being _impossible._ ”

“Ha,” May guffaws on the other end. “That’s why he’s so goddamned cute, you know. To lure you into a false sense of security, and then _bam!_ Surprise, he’s a total brat.”

“It worked,” Pepper mutters. “That’s Tony’s M.O., too. You’d think I’d have learned by now.”

“What’s up? Do you need me to give him shit for you?”

“No,” Pepper says, hitching the phone up on her shoulder and wandering out to the balcony, as an added layer of safety against enhanced little ears. “I want to...I want to try handling this one, if that’s okay?” She doesn’t really know what she’s asking for. Guidance. Support. Permission to practice her nonexistent parenting skills with May’s nephew as the unlucky guinea pig.

“You got this,” May says immediately, without a hint of doubt in her voice. It means more to Pepper than she thinks she’ll ever be able to express. “Fill me in, maybe I can help.”

“He and Tony are not speaking to each other at the moment,” Pepper says curtly, “God only knows why. Probably another argument where Tony hypocritically tries to convince Peter to cut back on the idiot heroics, Peter sees right through his bullshit and goes out and does even more idiot heroics to prove a point, then Tony suits up and goes barreling after him and Spider-Man is mortally embarrassed after having to be bailed out by Iron Man and...anyways, they’re both sitting and pouting on opposite sides of the apartment, getting blood on my nice couches. Neither one will go to the medbay because of course they’re both _fine_...” Pepper trails off, waving her hand in the air even though May can’t see her.

“Sounds par for the course.” May sounds amused.

“No, it’s not that. Superhero martyr complexes I can handle,” Pepper sighs. “I’m trying to order Peter something to eat because he clearly needs it and he insists on picking the cheapest thing on the menu. He won’t let me order more than one portion, either. It is driving me _insane._ ” She takes a breath. “Tony just ignores him and orders the entire menu so that whatever he likes is included regardless, but...I want him to use his words and _tell_ me, May. I’ve known this kid for how long, and I don’t even know what his favourite Italian takeout dish is, because he won’t express any kind of preference unless it’s directly related to fighting crime in spandex!”

“Oh, Pepper,” May says gently. “That’s a battle I’ve been fighting since we brought Peter home a decade ago.”

“He knows we could just flat-out buy him the whole restaurant, right? Has he ever Googled Tony’s net worth? Or mine, for that matter?”

“It’s not about that,” May explains patiently. “Okay. I’ll tell you a story. When Peter was very small, we thought for the longest time he loved being on his Little League Tee Ball team. Every time we asked him about practice, he’d say it was great. Then one day we found him crying in the closet just before it was time to leave, and he confessed that he didn’t want to go because all the running hurt his chest. Turns out he had undiagnosed asthma.”

Pepper can’t help a horrified little laugh, because that is _so_ Peter. “Oh my god.”

“Tell me about it.” Pepper can practically hear May rolling her eyes. “After that Ben and I had this crisis - like, what else is he not telling us? How are we ever going to get to know this kid if he’s so easy-going he’d rather just die of asthma than tell us he doesn’t love Tee Ball? It was like - it was crazy - we just wished he would throw a tantrum every once in a while, ask to have candy for dinner, anything.”

“So what did you do about it?”

“A friend of mine - pediatric nurse - gave us this amazing bit of advice that made all the difference. She said to give him limited options so that he doesn’t get overwhelmed, but phrase it so that he has to pick. You know, ‘Star Wars or Star Trek tonight? Blue shirt or yellow shirt?’ That kind of thing.”

“Oh!” Pepper gasps, as it clicks in her head. “I used to do that with Tony all the time, when I was his assistant. Two ties to choose from, or else he couldn’t focus for long enough to pick anything.”

“Exactly,” May laughs. “God, how did those two ever find each other? It’s like someone created them in the same idiot lab.”

After they hang up, Pepper takes another grounding breath and then heads back in, making her way towards the living room. She supposes Tony has left to go bang around in the lab and vent to his bots. Peter is right where she left him on the couch, although he’s now curled himself into a rather pathetic ball and is resting his chin on his knees.

“Hey, you,” she says gently, sitting down next to him.

“Hey, Ms. Potts.” Peter’s voice is quiet and miserable. Something wells up in Pepper’s chest. God _damn_ it all, she just wants to wrap him in a hundred blankets and make him a hot cocoa.

“Have you thought more about that takeout? I’m pretty hungry. I was thinking either the bucatini carbonara or the chicken parmesan with gnocchi pomodoro. Which one of those sounds better to you?”

“Um,” Peter says into his knees, “the carbonara?”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Pepper says, kissing the side of his grimy head. “I know you’ve got a hell of a healing factor, but all that dirt probably isn’t helping. Go take a shower, then we can talk about what an asshole my fiancé is while we enjoy our carbonara without him.”

Peter’s eyes go wide and he holds his hands up in a defensive gesture. “He’s, uh, he’s not an asshole! I didn’t - I don’t - I know he’s just, you know -”

“He’s an asshole,” Pepper laughs. “That’s part of his charm. Now go, shower, before I get the hose.” She swats him affectionately on the shoulder.

Peter scampers off obediently, but pauses to throw her a little grin over his shoulder.

 _You got this, Potts,_ she tells herself. _You got this._

* * *

“Did you ever think about having kids?” May asks her one night. They’re sprawled out on Pepper and Tony’s bed, a bottle or two of wine into the evening, eating cheese and crackers while a Beverly Hills 90210 marathon plays on the TV. 

Pepper rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. When she had lost her father as a very small girl, she’d sort of become disenchanted with the idea of parenthood, somehow. Like her father had broken the terms of the agreement and now the whole thing meant nothing. Her relationship with her mother was often cordial at best, and had never quite recovered from her decision to go haring off to New York to wear pencil skirts and take the subway to work. 

“Well, no,” she says finally. “But now that Peter’s crash-landed into my life, I’m starting to think I wouldn’t mind them.”

“Yep,” May says, popping the ‘p.’ “That’s how it went with me and Ben. We were happy, you know? We liked going out at night, visiting galleries and museums, taking vacations whenever we wanted, all that stuff. Then Peter...well, crash-landed into our lives, and it turned out parenthood suited us just fine.”

“Do you think any kid would’ve made you feel that way, or is Peter just special?”

May rolls onto her back too, and tilts her head to grin at Pepper. “I have no way to tell. Part of being a parent is feeling like your kid is just special.”

“Well, he is,” Pepper argues. “You know who else is special? Ned. And MJ. I think they’re just the three best kids in New York and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.”

“I’ll be your backup,” May says, drunkenly punching the air. “The Peter, Ned and MJ Stan Squad!”

“What’s a stan?”

“I don’t really know. A fan, I think?”

“We can’t be in a two-person squad. You need at least three for a squad.”

“Well, duh, Tony’s in our squad.”

“Oh, I forgot about him.”

“How on earth can you live with someone as obnoxious as Tony Stark and manage to forget about him?”

“Years of desensitization?”

They burst into helpless giggles. “It’s official, we’re a squad,” May gasps through peals of laughter, “Sorry, Avengers, but we need Tony so we can go beat up all the other parents who think their kids are better than ours. Do you think he’d make us matching squad outfits?”

“Don’t let him hear you say that!” Pepper chokes over a mouthful of cracker. “He loves coordinated outfits!” 

Eventually the raucous laughter subsides into scattered chuckles, and the two women burrow their way under the covers to watch 90210 in maximum comfort. As they chatter idly about the cast drama, and the outfits, Pepper leans over and affectionately rests her head on May’s shoulder. It’s been a long time since she’s done this - felt so comfortable with someone other than Tony, let herself get this close - but she realizes that she trusts May. More than almost anyone else.

 _Who knew,_ she thinks wryly, _that my best friend would end up being an Italian punk from Queens._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeet, I'm back from the dead with the update no one was asking for. IT'S MAY AND PEPPER LOVING HOURS!! AND I LOVE ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE KEPT READING AND COMMENTING EVEN THOUGH I'VE BEEN GONE FOR AGES.
> 
> Enjoy chapter two!!

Here’s the thing.

The first time May Parker meets Pepper Potts, it doesn’t feel like meeting a real person. It’s like the time Tony fucking Stark had just showed up at her shitty apartment in Queens - it had taken her brain a long time just to wrap itself around the fact that the man she’d seen countless times on TV was one and the same with the man who was sitting on _her_ couch eating _her_ walnut date loaf.

Thank God she’d chosen that day to bake a damned good walnut date loaf.

Anyways, it hadn’t felt like a _meeting_ , more like an _event_ that her poor exhausted mind had to wrap itself around later when she was lying flat on her back on her side of the bed, wishing more than anything that the other side was occupied too, that she could tell him: “Tony fucking Stark was in our living room.”

So she meets Stark for the first time, she meets him for the second time and slaps him in the face, and then he invites her out for dinner.

She goes, because her precious little bright-eyed baby can bench press a _bus_ now and for some reason the world’s most egotistical jackass is invested in keeping Peter alive and what the hell, she might as well score some free fucking seafood while she tries to figure out his motives.

And she walks in and there sitting at the table is Pepper motherfucking Potts.

May honestly couldn’t have given less of a shit about Tony Stark growing up. Just another attractive white guy with a goatee and an obscene amount of money passed down from dear old dad, when it came down to it. Sure, she’d gossiped with friends growing up about the Stark family’s latest scandals, was tangentially aware of the car crash that killed the Stark parents, the endless partying and womanizing that became their genius son’s legacy.

But Pepper Potts. _Those_ were the magazine covers that interested her enough to fork over a buck-fifty to the news stand, the interviews she followed online, the Ellen appearances she watched all the way through. “Now _there,_ ” she’d say, waving an arm at the TV, “is a woman who has it all figured out.”

(“Now _there_ ,” Ben would say to Peter later, teasingly waving his arm at May, “is a woman who has it all figured out.”)

“The jury’s still out on you,” she tells Pepper that night, because it’s true. She’s more than willing to stick Stark in the “guilty-until-proven-innocent” penalty box, but God help her, she can’t help but give Pepper Potts a little leeway.

* * *

May likes Pepper. She really does. They meet up for lunch every now and again, keep each other updated on their respective idiots. But for quite a while the jury remains firmly _out_.

The fact is that May just can’t wrap her head around _why_ someone as competent and intelligent and no-nonsense as Pepper would spend her time chasing around after a disaster like Stark, cleaning up his messes. It’s a puzzle. She can’t figure it out, and she can’t trust these people with her child until she figures it out.

She googles Stark a few times. Yeah, okay, he saved the planet a couple times and is probably one of the smartest people in the entire world. He’s good-looking enough if not her type. He donates a considerable amount of his ridiculous wealth to charity. Whatever. He’s still a dickhead.

Then there’s this Tuesday night where Peter goes and gets his dumb ass stabbed.

May doesn’t find this out until Wednesday morning, when Stark’s name pops up on her iPhone screen. She considers ignoring it and pretending she’s at work. She also knows that Stark knows her work schedule and will probably do that annoying thing he does where he just keeps calling continuously until she picks up.

“What?” she says flatly, balancing the phone against her shoulder as she continues folding the laundry she’d hauled back from the laundromat last night and unceremoniously dumped in a pile in the living room because she’d been too tired to deal with it.

“Is Peter okay?”

The voice that comes through the other end of the line is so haggard and weary that if May hadn’t just seen Peter hustle out the door still horfing down a mouthful of toast, she would be kicking down his bedroom door to check on him.

“He’s probably gonna be late for school because he lost track of time in the shower,” May says warily. “Why, Stark? Something I should know?”

“He, um,” Stark sighs, pauses, takes a deep breath. “Came by the compound last night. Was banged up pretty bad.”

May grips the edge of the table. She knows she’s really not going to like whatever Stark says next.

“Some - some fucking lowlife stabbed him. Missed all vital organs. I tried to patch him up.”

She puts a hand over her eyes and chokes back a sob. This isn’t real. She just watched Peter sling that too-heavy backpack over his shoulder and jog out the door. Her _baby_. Someone stabbed her baby boy, and she didn’t even _notice._

Stark is still talking. “I’m so sorry, May. I’m sorry. I should’ve called you last night. I tried to get him to stay over - didn’t want him swinging around - bleeding -”

“Why the hell did he go to _you?_ ” May snaps.

“I don’t know.” Stark sounds nonplussed. “I think he gambled on me being less likely to freak out.”

“Well? Did you freak out?”

“Yep.” Stark’s voice cracks.

“Oh, honey,” May sighs, the rage draining out of her as suddenly as it had come on. ( _Like a summer storm,_ Ben used to say.) “First stab wound? They’re scary as hell, aren’t they.”

“Not my first,” Stark grunts. “Patched up Cap plenty of times. It’s just...” he inhales shakily. “Kid’s barely bigger than a chinchilla. He’s...he’s just so...”

“Yeah,” May breathes, blinking back tears.

“Anyways,” Stark says gruffly, clearing his throat. “Just wanted to call and check in on him. I should be surprised that he went to school today, but I guess I’m not.”

“Tony.”

“Yeah?”

“Is there a way to talk him out of this whole Spider-Man thing?”

Stark pauses a moment. “I really, really wish there was. But I know from experience that he’s doing it because he can’t not.”

After they hang up May sits down right there in a pile of laundry and cries. She knows Stark had taken away the suit - that night Peter had come home in Hello Kitty pajama pants and smelling like a dumpster, looking like his whole world had crumbled. She also knows the little shithead had gone out again shortly thereafter in his ridiculous crime-fighting pyjamas.

After she’s done crying May drives to Peter’s school, signs him out, and they spend the rest of the afternoon watching Real Housewives while plowing through a couple dozen doughnuts from Moe’s. Peter knows that May knows, and May knows that Peter knows that she knows. They don’t talk about it. After they’ve finished the doughnuts May orders three pizzas. Peter makes her laugh by getting way too invested in the housewife drama and taking sides. May tickles his feet to distract him while she swipes the last slice of pepperoni.

“Baby,” May says later, when Peter’s head is on her lap and his eyes are drifting closed. She scratches a soothing pattern into his scalp with her nails.

“Yahuh?” Peter mumbles, fighting to stay alert.

“You know you can always talk to me, right? About anything. Even this...this Spider-Man thing.”

Peter looks up at her, eyes suddenly wide. “Oh - um, yeah - I just - I’m sorry-”

“It’s okay, honey,” she sighs. “You did the right thing going to Tony. He’s more experienced with this stuff. I just want you to know you can come to me too.”

“Okay,” Peter whispers. He smiles tentatively up at her, and she leans down to give him an obnoxious loud smacking kiss directly on the nose.

After she sends Peter to bed she sits and stews on the couch for a while, her mind roiling through the day’s events. Then she grabs her phone and writes a text.

_New ice cream shop at Bay Plaza - you in?_

Pepper texts back within five minutes. A smiley emoji, a thumbs-up, and an ice-cream emoji. Then she texts again: _1pm tomorrow?_

May can’t help but smile down at the little glowing screen.

* * *

Once May’s made up her mind about Pepper, it’s not a big leap into just plain loving her. They get trashed on wine spritzers at the Stark compound and burn the fuck out of batches of pancakes the next morning. They grab dinner at cute little bistros neither Tony or Peter would come within ten feet of. And sometimes, like tonight, Pepper takes her least conspicuous car and drives out to spend the evening at May’s apartment in Queens while their boys presumably try not to blow each other up in the lab.

“Knock knock,” Pepper calls, letting herself in through the unlocked door.

“You look absolutely _flattened_ ,” May observes, peering at the other woman over her glasses as Pepper tugs her heels off.

Pepper frowns. “I work very hard to not look flattened. What, is my makeup off?” She walks over and drops onto the couch in an uncharacteristically ungraceful heap.

“Your makeup is perfect and you know it.” May gets up and heads towards the kitchen. “Did you bring comfy pants? If not you can borrow some of mine. Go change. No pencil skirts allowed in here.”

“I brought my own,” Pepper grouses as she hauls herself back off the couch. May sets to work making a pot of tea.

“So what’s eating you, Pepper Potts?” she prompts, once they’re settled in the living room with mugs of steaming strawberry green tea.

Pepper’s mouth presses into a thin line, as if she’s measuring her next words very carefully. “Oh, you know,” she says, with calculated casualness, “the usual. SI’s Development budget is getting a little out of control. Thaddeus Ross exists. My fiancé flying around in a metal suit getting shot at.”

“You know,” May says, taking a long sip of tea, “the world wouldn’t collapse if you just took a break for a minute.”

“I am taking a break,” Pepper defends. “I’m drinking tea in sweatpants. My phone is on the kitchen counter and I haven’t checked it in ten whole minutes.”

“No,” May insists, “you’re not. Look at you. You’re still carrying it around. You’re wound up tight as a piano wire. I wanna know, kiddo. Who told you it was your job to be responsible twenty-four-seven for all these grown-ass men? Just quit worrying for a couple hours and let them stew in their own shit for a while.”

Pepper sighs and scrubs a hand over her face. “How do you do it, May?” she mutters.

“Do what? Give no fucks?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I give a lot of fucks. I’m talking out my ass here. I haven’t got this figured out. Friends just gotta call each other on their shit, you know?”

Pepper laughs, then leans forward and fixes May with one of her signature analyzing gazes. “Okay, then I’m calling you on your shit. Why won’t you let Tony buy Peter a new backpack?”

“He’s got to learn to take care of his stuff,” May says, raising an eyebrow.

Pepper grins. “Funny, I’ve heard Tony say that exact phrase to him word-for-word about the suit.”

“What are you trying to say, Potts?”

“I’m trying to say, Parker, that accepting a little help from me and Tony won’t kill you.”

May frowns and takes a long swig of tea. There are a lot of things she wants to say to that, first and foremost being _I don’t need help_.

“What’s going on in there?” Pepper pokes at May’s temple. “I know Tony can be insufferable about throwing money at things. It’s just his strange and slightly problematic love language. He’s not trying to patronize you or Peter. Hmm...or is buying a new backpack a little too close to your parenting turf, and you want Tony just to stick to the superhero stuff?” When May remains silent, Pepper leans back and sips from her mug. “Or maybe you really are trying to teach Peter a lesson about being responsible with his things and you think Tony’s undermining you.”

It’s all three, because Pepper is the most freakishly observant person May knows, but hearing the reasons articulated in Pepper’s calm, level tone makes May feel that she’s maybe being a little mulish.

“Okay,” Pepper says. She puts her feet up on the coffee table. “No backpack. I’ll get Tony off your case about it.”

“I’m not trying to be...” May trails off, frustrated. “I know he means well, I’m just...”

“You two are so alike, you know that? You and Peter.” Pepper smiles gently over the rim of her mug.

It’s so small, but somehow the exact thing May needed to hear. She swats affectionately at Pepper’s shoulder and gets up off the couch. “We are not. I can’t pull off spandex or do a backflip. What do you want on your popcorn?”

“Cinnamon and sugar!” Pepper calls after her.

“You are so predictable,” May teases back.

“Whatever, I bet you’re having parmesan garlic.”

May pauses mid-reach for the garlic powder. Sometimes it makes her feel a little unnerved having a friend like Pepper, who doesn’t miss a damn thing and isn’t shy about letting you know it.

On the other hand, it’s just...kind of nice.

Her lips quirk into a grin and she grabs the chili powder. “Wrong again, Pep. Two for two. Sad.”

Pepper’s answering laugh from the living room feels like home.

* * *

And then there’s those moments where friendship means more than bistros and brunches and good-natured disagreements over tea. There are the moments where Pepper cries into her hands and May has know idea what to say because they both know that no matter what Tony says he will never, ever give up Iron Man. The times when May sees news footage of Peter avoiding gunfire on live television and calls Pepper because she just needs someone to scream at, and she can’t scream at Tony because she knows it will send him spiraling into a place he doesn’t deserve, not really.

It’s nights like tonight, where they’re having what Peter has started calling “family dinner” - those Fridays where May isn’t working the night shift, Pepper is actually home at a reasonable time, Rhodes is in town, and the five of them eat supper all together.

Tony is cooking a comically enormous lasagne and singing along to old Italian classics in the kitchen, while Peter tells Pepper a long and convoluted story about gym class, gesticulating wildly and making faces as he does his best Ned imitation. May and Rhodes chat about work. It’s normal.

It’s not normal. Pepper’s sitting a little too straight. Tony laughs a bit too loudly at one of Peter’s jokes. Rhodes’ eyes are tight around the corners.

May knows they’re all trying for Peter’s sake and she knows it’s useless. Peter is the most perceptive kid she’s ever known, even before the whole spider-senses thing. It’s the kind of perceptiveness that comes with knowing that anything can be taken away from you at any time. May knows this but she joins right in with the too-loud laughter and casual storytelling, because what else can you do, and Peter plays along gamely because he’s also the kindest kid she’s ever known.

So they eat their dinner and Rhodes drags Tony and Peter to the lab under the flimsy pretext of repairs to the War Machine suit, and Pepper takes May to the living room and sits her down and asks how much she understands about the Sokovia Accords.

May barely understands anything about the Sokovia Accords. Pepper sits there with her in the living room for hours, talking calmly and referencing a thick sheaf of paper procured from her purse, patiently answering every single one of May’s questions until she gets it.

It’s one in the morning and May’s eyes are painfully dry and all she can think is, _God, why us? Why the Parker family?_

How can it have been two entire years since she and Peter stumbled groggily into the kitchen to find Ben making them toast and eggs, like every morning? Since she heard him laugh or saw him smile? Where had those golden days gone and how, _how_ can she get them back? May feels like she’d do anything to go back. _Anything_. She closes her eyes. The room is suddenly too bright.

“May.”  
  
Pepper’s voice coaxes her gently back into herself. She takes a long shuddering breath and feels a long slender hand wrap around hers.

“May. You’re not alone. You have us. Do you understand?”

May finally opens her eyes. Pepper immediately catches her gaze and holds it. “Tony and I will not let _anything_ touch Peter, for as long as we’re both alive, and we’ve made plans for afterwards as well. We love him, and we love you. The four of us are one unit, do you hear me? We’re family.”

Family is a complicated word for May. It’s been many long years of watching hers dwindle, you see? Of watching her father waste away to the bottle and her mother lose herself in her own mind; standing over Mary and Richard’s caskets holding their tiny son in his impossibly small black suit. Holding Ben’s hand in the morgue for hours, unable to let go because it was the last time, forever and always.

So she has built a little wall around herself and Peter. Brick by brick: _He’s so young. He’s all I have. I’m all he has. I can’t let him go to any more funerals._

Tony Stark’s style is to break down brick walls, guns blazing. To show up in people’s living rooms and take their kids to Germany and then drunkenly cry about it on your couch half a year later and then send flowers and a hideously expensive bottle of scotch as an apology for crying about it. You can’t help but let him in. It’s a foregone conclusion. But Pepper, Pepper Potts - she’s not a demolitionist like her husband. She’s a builder. And May can see her laying down the strong foundations for all four of them to stand on together. Brick by brick.

“Love you, Potts,” she chokes, squeezing Pepper’s hand for all it’s worth.

Pepper smiles and rests her head on top of May’s. “Love you too. I can’t help it. You Parkers are just so god damned loveable.”

Tony may be full of shit and his promises often mean nothing more than his earnest intention to keep them, but May full well knows he would take a bullet for Peter with as little hesitation as Ben had. She doesn’t know how she feels about it but she unequivocally knows it’s true. And somehow, in this moment, she knows it’s true of Pepper too; and she knows that’s what family means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually kinda short for me at least, but I had to get all my May feels out into the world. Hope you are all safe and well, my darlings. Tell me all about your insane quarantine adventures in the comments, I wanna hear 'em!

**Author's Note:**

> Lol, rated T for butt stuff. Just to be safe.
> 
> I'm back from the dead and back on my bullshit! This was one of the most requested relationships to explore from Mr. Stark's Home for Idiot Teenagers, and I just love these two so much. I decided to just post it as-is, as a short little piece of fluff, but part of me wants to write through all the depressing Infinity War/Endgame stuff! Let me know if you're interested in more and I might continue this. xoxo 
> 
> Catch me at sturionic.tumblr.com if you want to yell together about Avengers, Zelda and more!


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